Reasons for quitting sessions early? help me

[raptor517]

ok so i have some kind of sickness. im not quite sure how to explain exactly what goes thru my head, but when i play cash game sessions, i QUIT very early into them if im up a few buyins early. like today, i played a guy 10-25 and won 2 buyins off him and just left, even though he was retarded bad and on tilt and i was hugely +ev in the game. i have ~80 buyins for that game so bankroll management isnt an issue.

i really dont understand it. back when i played sngs, no matter how i was running, i would play like 21035809238532 a day and just keep loading them up one after another without worry. its not like i have something better to do, when i get done playing i usually just browse posts, talk on aim, or play dumb video games.

basically, i think im having trouble motivating myself. i suppose it could be that i fear losing, but that has never been a real issue before for me, and again, bankroll isnt an issue, i dont play any games unless im VERY overrolled. i suppose it could be that i dont play because its not a necessity for me to play. i dont really NEED the money for anything, i have everything setup in my house, every material posession i need or want pretty much, basically i have to make a house payment every month and thats it.

how the hell do i motivate myself to play? i really hate that i cant make myself put in a long session. i feel like i just sit around and waste so much time doing nothing when i should be at least having 1 table up of SOMETHING. but no. help! holla

[MatusowIsBald]

First of all, congrats on achieving so much at such a young age. When I was 20 I still thought fart jokes and M80s made the world go 'round. Ok, so maybe I still do. Anyway, I had to reply because I have the exact same problem. For me I think it may be a confidence issue. I think that, even though I may be doing very well at a table, part of me thinks I may have moved up too high too fast. Keep in mind I started at Micro-Limit HE and moved up to $3/6 pretty fast. But for you it sounds like in contrast to what you have (material possessions that is) the payoff isn't that great, so it's rather boring. That's only a guess, obviously. Also, is it possible that you are losing interest because you burned yourself out playing so much before? I know I have the tendency to absolutely immerse myself in things right from the get-go, then tire of them rather quickly. Good luck with whatever you choose...

[egordo877]

getting stuck helps...

well, one thing to keep in mind is that the good games won't last. so if you don't get the soft money now someone else will and you'll lose out.

also, i try to think in terms of rakeback. like the more i play the more rakeback i get, rather than the more i play the more i win. along those lines, I try to detach myself from the winning aspect and focus on playing good.

i guess there aren't any tricks to it really, you just gotta buckle down and be disciplined about staying in a good game.

that was my weak attempt at advice. having said that I kind of suffer from the same problem. I dont get as many hands in as I should given all the free time that I have. one of my frequent justifications for it is me saying to myself, "well, I have to go meet up with so-and-so soon, I don't want to leave on a sour note". and then I quit an hour or two early.

yeah, so I'm definitely looking forward to whatever other advice is offered in this thread!

edited to add: another thing that helps is that I go into BBV and look for those old posts of players that have put up huge winning months playing a ton of hands. I look at their graphs, and then I try to get very jealous of them.

finally, I try to guilt trip myself, like: for a good player these days poker is such easy money relative to the possible alternatives, that it would be stupid for me to not take as much advantage as i can. sometimes that works too.

[Dan BRIGHT]

pinky I have the opposite going on... If Im running well I end up playing a realllllly long time and I start off poorly I get pissed off and quit poker for a day or 2.

[Unarmed]

Nah, youre not sick bro. I was just gonna come here and write the exact same post. If I get up 4-5 BIs in the first hour or two, (today for example) I just bail and go do something else, but if I get stuck, I'll play for ten hours str8 trying to dig out. It makes absolutely no sense. I have 120+ BIs at my level, and I obv know that playing professionally is one LONG day so breaking it up by calendar days is kinda mental. I think its the var honestly, where one decision can cost you a stack or more, the downside of sticking around for an extra hand or two is pretty severe, but we obv shouldnt care about the money at all... that's what I loved about being backed, I was entirely focused on making the right decision, the money didnt matter one bit.

I'm def capable of putting in insane hours without losing much of my edge, so bailing when up a ton is costing me a good deal, esp (as you mention) if Im jetting when the games are good, which is often the case.

Anyway, Im really interested in solving this, so if you figure anything out, lemme know. Talk to Jman btw, hes had tons of +huge/-huge days (for better or worse) as he doesnt let himself consider the $$ until hes actually done.

[ QUOTE ]

"well, I have to go meet up with so-and-so soon, I don't want to leave on a sour note". and then I quit an hour or two early.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sh*t I do that all the time - lol.

[Dadswell]

I am in the exact same boat. I'm on a massive heater and won like 22 buyins in the past 3 days in like 7 hrs of play. I always seem to quit when I've made enough to get by. Like when I make my monthly goal I have a hard time getting myself to play for the rest of the month. Same as when I win a few buyins at the start of my session I can't seem to stick around.

I usually just end up wasting the time reading forums, chatting on IM, etc.

I thought it may have been some burnout but I took the first 2 weeks of this month off and I still have the same problem when I started up again.

[SEABEAST]

Yeah I'm the same. I think it's an emotional thing, like knowing that if you quit you'll feel good for the rest of the day and just chill doing whatever, whereas if you keep playing you could slide back down the hill, get stuck and wind up grinding out some nightmarish long session.

I dunno, it's definitely huge -ev, I'm trying to curb it myself.

[jh21hook]

Daniel Negreanu wrote a really good article on this, it is on Full Tilt's archives I think. Basically he says he would just play x hrs a day regardless of results. If he had been playing 2 hrs and someone looked at his huge stack and said "how much are you up, why don't you leave?" He would ask the time and say "If it is 11:30, then I'm up 2(X/hr)" Seemed like a good way to look at it. It helped me to stop hitting and running, now I just look for hrs times my rate.

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
If I get up 4-5 BIs in the first hour or two, I just bail and go do something else, but if I get stuck, I'll play for ten hours str8 trying to dig out. It makes absolutely no sense.

[/ QUOTE ]See chasing.

[Sciolist]

Well done on the WCOOP result!

It's pretty easy to get burntout on poker, and it sounds a bit like that's what you're approaching. The first million's the easiest, the second isn't anything like as easy to get through (not that I have played that much yet).

I do quite like the idea of deciding "ok, I'm going to play 3 hours a day, minimum", and staying if you WANT to play more. Obviously if you have a good reason to not play, then that's Ok, but you have to make sure you aren't making up reasons to stop.

I think this is an issue of protecting yourself from burnout vs. taking what you can while the going is good. Are the games always going to be this good? There're a lot of doom & gloom merchants who I obviously don't agree with, but the games are always going to get tougher when the growth rate can't be sustained. The fact is that games are already tougher now than a year ago, and whilst that has always been the case (online, at least), at some point the games will get tougher faster than most of us can keep up with.

When will that time come? I think it'll be a while yet, but you have to consider what you're going to do then, and whether you'll regret not playing now. Of course, of the people who'll adapt to tougher games, you're in a pretty good position: You're already playing some of the tougher online games. I mean, if need be you could drop a few limits and still make more than enough to live well.

For what it's worth, it took me a good year to overcome my burnout, and now I stick to ~20-25k hands a month. Can you live for a year without needing to play? What'd you do with that time?

So what do you want? Is this a smash-and-grab while the going's good? Is this a long term career for you? Whichever you decide determines your choice here. Burnout or not?